In the end, Gu Chusheng couldn’t hold onto Qingzhou. Walking through the gates, he tells Shen You that he’s willing to surrender. He drops his sword and tells Shen You that he will open gate and let his soldiers in.
Gu Chusheng’s actions is made to look like he’s gone back on his resolve to fight to his last breath but the way he stood and spoke without fear in his voice, and coming off as almost inviting Shen You and hops troops to enter through the gates, it’s hard to not suspect a hidden trick being played like Commander Gao had wondered aloud.
But the surrender is accepted and Shen You and Commander Gao leads his men through Qingzhou’s gate after getting Gu Chusheng down on his knees to be used as a mounting block so Shen You and Commander Gao could get onto their horses to ride through the gates.
News of Qingzhou’s surrender makes it to Wei Yun in North Qi. He’s made it in and this news sees him regard the plan to kill Su Can even more urgent. Through the help of his insider, he hopes to get a new identity and infiltrate North Qi’s royal court to carry out this mission.
This insider, as it turns out, is Gongsun Lan, City Lord of Yun. He’s the same person who had reported receiving intelligence that Great Sui troops had come to North Qi but had left out who was leading the troops. This move now seems to have been deliberate.
This City Lord of Yun also looks to be one of the people Wei Yun’s father had planted in North Qi to report back intelligence that Wei Yun talked about in Episode 28. For 20 years, he lay low. It was only recently, during a recruitment of troops to welcome Eldest Princess Yunyang’s son back to North Qi to claim the throne, he decided to seized the opportunity to enter the royal court. And it was only after gaining Eldest Princess Yunyang’s trust, he decided to make contact with Wei Yun about bringing North Qi down.
Gongsun Lan denies having prepared a plan that Wei Yun presumed he had, but he tells him that he does have some tricks up his sleeves.
How Gongsun Lan plans to have Wei Yun enter the palace is not revealed, but the next time we see Wei Yun—or someone who’s meant to be Wei Yun—is during the night and overpowered by North Qi men. His family token is taken from him before he’s slashed across the neck. Wei Yun’s supposedly dead, and as proof he’s dead, his severed head, along with the Wei Token, is brought back to Su Can to see.
Out of disgust, Su Can barely looks at the top of the head before moving away from the box the head is in. Seeing the Wei family token as proof Wei Yun has been killed was enough for Su Can.
With Wei Yun believed to be dead and Gongsun Lan reporting that the remaining men in the city have all surrendered, Su Can takes it upon himself to lead troops to Qingzhou to subdue it.
The whereabouts of Li Changming is revealed to be at Hot Spring Villa, held hostage by Xue Hanmei—or rather, Zhao Yue. He has no intention of hurting her. However, he has no intention of letting her go either. He wants to marry her eventually, give her the world because, he says, his feelings for her are genuine. Li Changming, though, wants to kill him. Being deceived was the thing she hated the most.
Despite Li Changming’s lack of cooperation, he pushes ahead with his plans. First on the agenda is to hold a ceremony to seek the blessings of the deer god for the North Qi soldiers’ victory. He intends to force Li Changming to attend this with him.
As preparations for blessing ceremony is underway, Chu Yu, Lu Qiba and theirs people arrive at Hot Spring Villa with the goal of blowing up the workshop where the war chariots are built. While Chu Yu sneaks into the villa disguised as one of Zhao Yue’s servants, Lu Qiba sneaks his men past towards the workshop. Deliberately, Chu Yu exposes herself in front of Zhao Yue during his check on ceremony preparations, charging directly at him with her blade so that all guards are drawn to her position and free passage is given to Lu Qiba.
With dozens upon dozens of guards on her, she eventually gets surrounded and is made to submit. She never thinks about escaping, though, as this would get Zhao Yue looking around the villa in search for her and hinder Lu Qiba’s task of blowing up the workshop. So, she consciously makes the decision to stay and let them arrest her.
Before being taken in, Zhao Yue admits to being the mastermind behind everything that’s happened to the Chu, Wei, and Gu families. He instigated of Yao Yong. He was the one who stole the octagonal crossbow. He was behind the death of 70,000 Wei troops in Baidi Valley and the harm towards Chu Yu’s family. He was also behind the death of Gu Chusheng’s father. He also lets her in on the face that he is not only the son of Eldest Princess Yunyang but also a descendant of the Lord of Qin.
In Fengling City, Chu Linyang decides he can no longer wait for Chu Yu to destroy North Qi’s war chariots. A report comes in announcing that North Qi was attacking again and that the city has been reduced to 3,000 people. He must make a move and go after the war chariots’ mechanism that would stop it from operating and take down North Qi.
Chu Linyang’s leg hasn’t healed. He couldn’t even stand upright when he bolted up in reaction to the North Qi attacks. However, he still insisted on going into battle. With Tuantuan’s medical skills, he was given two hours.
She was unwilling to send him off onto the battlefield, but—as she tells him—it’s because he is brave and will stop at nothing to protect the city’s people even if he could mean dying doing it is what he likes about him. So, instead of stopping him, she hands him his helmet and tells him that she will seal his five acupoints and give him medicine that will numb the pain and allow him to walk and stand like a normal person for that time. Two hours was not long, but any amount that gave him the ability to try was enough time for Chu Linyang.
Chu Linyang’s call to destroy the war chariots was met with opposition—at least, it appeared that way at the beginning. Zhang Huan, a former general who once followed Chu Linyang’s father had noted that the battle was a death mission. Anyone who joined the battle would need to face North Qi in close combat in order to destroy the war chariot’s mechanism that Chu Linyang was wanting to destroy. They couldn’t just shoot down this mechanism from afar. It was expected that those who fought at such close proximity would not return alive.
There was a young soldier willing to join despite the grim survival chances but Zhang Huan told him to step back. It appeared as if Zhang Huan was suggesting soldiers not go into battle but that wasn’t what he was doing. He and five former generals all step forward to join the fight right after. Zhang Huan’s talk was only to voice the real possibility of dying right there on the battlefield and was only making it known that anyone joining understood the risks.
With the troops all informed and willing to defend Fengling with their lives, Chu Linyang instructs Chu Shan to take charge of city defenses.
Over on Song Wenchang and Song Shilan’s side, they’ve led the civilians out of Qingzhou’s battle zone. The report that Gu Chusheng had surrendered the city sees Song Wenchang rush to try save him. He was feeling guilty over the situation, believing he was responsible for what’s happened to Qingzhou and wanted to make up for it.
Song Shilan had tried to stop him. He believed Song Wenchang would be walking right into a trap if went. But Song Wenchang didn’t listen, giving his brother a punch to get him off of him. It wasn’t until he got a slap in the face from Chu Jin (who shows up behind him) that he calmed down and the two brothers were able to talk about the surrender and their next move rationally.
Song Shilan believed that Gu Chusheng must have a reason for surrendering Qingzhou. He didn’t believe Gu Chusheng would do it otherwise. As for going back for Gu Chusheng, the secret passage they used to get into Qingzhou during their capture of Xu Lingzhang could be used to look for Gu Chusheng.
